In describing
the plot of High Strung, a movie
about an innocent young blond teen dancer who moves to the big city and learns
how to integrate a hip-hop style with her abilities in classical dance, I could
easily be talking about any number of dance films, from Save the Last Dance to several entries in the Step Up franchise. Literally nothing about this film feels original
or fresh, but that might not matter to the younger audience members it seems
directed at, many of which may be unfamiliar with how much of the movie is a
retread. Even the flaws remain the same, casting actors for their abilities
during the musical numbers rather than for convincing acting. Awkward dialogue
and predictable plot points give way to some well executed dance choreography
and a bit of creative musical composition. If only this were a music video,
there would plenty positive to say.

Sniper: Ghost Shooter, the sixth film in
the Sniper franchise, keeps the
family connection alive with Chad Michael Collins returning to the role of
Brandon Beckett. His father, Thomas Beckett (Tom Berenger) is absent from the
latest entry, though Richard Miller (Billy Zane), a sniper from the original
1993 film, reappears to fill the connection. Mostly, however, these films have
standalone storylines which could have easily added the connections to Sniper films as an afterthought.

Despite being
directed by Spanish filmmaker Koldo Serra from a story and screenplay by two
Spanish writers about the attacks on the small village in Spain during their Civil War in 1937, Guernica
seems made with an English speaking audience in mind. The film is primarily in
English and our protagonist is an American journalist. Fortunately much of the
rest of the film’s approach feels more European rather than as if it had been
constructed by Hollywood, especially since the
plot is almost exactly the same as Pearl Harbor.

When cameras
first became portable enough to shoot outside of studios, there were plenty of
low budget westerns made. Some of them are even considered classics today.
While it has gotten increasingly easy to make movies with limited funds, the
biggest problems with Traded have
less to do with a lack of money and are more about missing talent and
originality. The premise of the film is Taken
in the western genre, as the unimaginative title suggests. It is so close to
the original premise and so riddled with amateur dialogue and performances that
Traded often feels more like a parody
than a sincere effort at filmmaking.